A Single Wish
by Ardil the Traveller
Summary: It's been two months since Shadow died, burned up in the planet's atmosphere, but Sonic still can't get over the feeling that he should have been able to save him, somehow...
1. Chapter 1

A bright day on which every breath seemed to bring the promise of new life, of a shining future, but there was one who did not share in the joy. Looking out over the view, staring across the ocean, his eyes were focused on the past rather than the present. It had been two months since the battle for the world was fought, and won - and lost. For is it not losing when the winner dies? Two months, and all that remained of that terrible time were the scars of the moon, the space station ARK... and the scars left on a hero's heart. 

"Sonic?"

Sonic turned his head to look at the young fox, his best friend. Tails had been trying to distract him from his thoughts for weeks on end, but nothing he did seemed to last for long.

"Sonic, what are you thinking?" Perhaps it was a foolish question, because Tails already knew the answer. The question and answer were becoming almost routine. Every time Sonic slipped back into this mood, Tails tried his best to snap him out of it, but he couldn't seem to get far enough from the events of two months ago.

"If I had just held on... for a few moments longer... Tails, we were right next to each other! I could have caught hold of him, pulled him back!"

"No, Sonic! Neither of you had the energy for that! You would both have died!"

Sonic shook his head and turned back to the window.

"There had to have been a way... I could have... There must have been something I could have done..."

Even looking into Sonic's eyes hurt. He blamed himself for not being able to save Shadow, and the pain was written within them, reinforcing its message across Tails' heart. It was no use arguing - goodness knew he'd tried, but after a point, what was there left to say, when Sonic could not let go? Tails changed tack, hoping to break him out of it again, at least for a time, to distract him with something else. Perhaps this time he'd not lapse back... perhaps if Tails could get him running, testing the limits of his ability, perhaps then he would revel again in the speed and freedom he loved so much...

"Hey, Sonic..."

"Hmm...?" A slightly quizzical acknowledgement of Tails, a vague question more out of politeness than true curiosity, so far from his usual self that Tails might have cried if he hadn't got used to it already, done enough of that already. At first when Sonic returned, it had been fine. He seemed all right. But then, as the days passed, he began to grow more sombre, as though everything were pushing at him in a way he could not avoid. Until he began to sit like this for hours at a time, withdrawing into his own mind, unable this time to let go of the past. Even after he'd lost a part of himself with the destruction of that robot, Hyper Metal Sonic, Sonic had kept on going. Had it all finally become too much? All the pain he'd seen, and stopped, and been unable to stop, all the people he'd seen, and saved, and been unable to save... and then the death of Shadow... had it all been pushing him, slowly, for all that he didn't usually think much on the past? Tails was resolved to keep on trying, because Sonic was his friend, but even he was no longer sure that Sonic would ever return to his normal self.

"Uh, Sonic, I wanted to do an experiment, and I was wondering... could you help me?"

"...What is it, Tails?" No real interest, no spark of curiosity, just a question to Tails, what do you want me to do, because Tails was the best friend he'd ever had, so he'd do it for him if he could. Tails plunged on anyway, hoping to somehow fire his interest, making it up as he went along.

"Well, it's all to do with physics... the faster you go, the more time seems to slow down for everyone else, as far as you're concerned. As you approach the speed of light, the effect gets more and more pronounced, until at lightspeed, as far as you're concerned, you're everywhere at once... I wanna see just how fast you can go, and just what effect that'll have on you relative to me... Will you help me?"

"Time slows down? You serious?" But there was a spark of real interest in his voice, interest on his own behalf, and not purely because Tails had asked him to do something. It was a better reaction than Tails had got in a long time.

"Yeah. Come on, I'll show you the explanation if you like."

Sonic shook his head. "Never mind. You saying it's true is good enough for me. Let's go ahead and try this thing!"

Sonic's actual enthusiasm sparked a smile across Tails' face, hope and delight and relief mixed.

"Great! Let's figure out where to do it. We'll need a long, flat strip of land - I'll just get the maps..." Tails turned, but before he could go anywhere, Sonic spoke.

"No need. I'll just go Super and head out across the ocean!"

"Super?! Are you sure?" Tails' surprise was momentary. It was the best way to do such a thing, but was it really that important? At least, he supposed, Sonic was throwing himself into the idea.

"No, wait - Hyper. I'll charge up to Hyper - that'll get me the greatest speedboost I can have!"

"Uh... okay, Sonic." Tails wasn't sure why this seemed so important to his friend. Perhaps it was just a way of finally putting everything behind him, to shove it from his mind with something else completely. Sonic got up and raced ahead of Tails to where the Cyclone waited in the hangar, already standing atop it by the time Tails arrived with the seven Emeralds.

"Let's go!"

Tails nodded and fired up the engines, sending the Cyclone soaring off the end of the runway and up into the cloudless sky.

The flight was short, and Sonic's questions about the experiment made it seem shorter. Tails was only just answering them, the majority of his intellect simply rejoicing in the fact that Sonic seemed to be regaining his normal self.

"Say, Tails... what happens if you go faster than the speed of light?"

"...Dunno. Nobody's ever managed it - it's not supposed to be possible. Guess if anybody could do it, it'd be you." Later on, the question would weigh heavily on his mind, but for now he barely noticed Sonic had asked it, buoyed up in his euphoria. It seemed far too soon that they landed on the long beach Tails had picked, stretching out to the calm sea with hardly a ripple to mar either the sand or the water. The wind was still, but neither of them noticed the heat. Both Sonic and Tails walked up to the top of the gently sloping beach, Tails synchronising their watches down to the last second.

"Ready, Sonic?"

"...I guess so."

Now that they were there, Sonic seemed oddly reluctant to begin, checking his shoes, fiddling with this and that. Then he shook himself minutely, as though resolved to see this through, and set his aim directly towards the ocean.

'If I do this... and it works... I was never free... if it doesn't... I'll never know...'

But Tails could not even begin to guess at his thoughts as the hedgehog nicknamed by some the 'Blue Blur' accelerated down the beach, running at incredible speed. As he reached the water he drew upon the power of the Chaos Emeralds - Super, and his eyes were red - again, more - Hyper, and his eyes shifted back to a brilliant green - again - speeding him ever faster, already out of Tails' sight - Light Speed Dash and a feeling of bordering the edge of reality, of space and time itself - Chaos Control!

And then, there was... nothing. Tails, Emerald detector in hand, watched in horrified amazement as the blip of Chaos Energy that was Hyper Sonic disappeared completely - and did not return.

Darkness, but not a calm darkness, a rushing darkness, fragments of images sharp as knives, cutting at him, pushing at him, pulling him back, stronger than anything he had ever felt, pushing him from his destination, as though he were on a piece of elastic stretched almost to its limit, only his will keeping him moving at all as he seemed to slow to a relative crawl... and then he was there.

Darkness... but a different darkness. He could see the stars. Sonic turned, and the world hung beneath him, turning gently. Fiery streaks of small meteors burning up in the atmosphere. Sonic was holding himself against the stretched-elastic feeling - he did not belong here, he was being pulled away - He closed his eyes, and he was further down, one hand outstretched and then holding on tightly, he must never let go - and something stretched beyond endurance threw him back or forwards through the rushing swirling darkness of image fragments and invisible knives, but the trip was a thousand times faster for he was returning to where he belonged, being thrown from where he could not be, and then all was a different dark again, and Sonic knew no more. But he had not let go.

Tails sat alone in the cockpit of the Cyclone, unmoving. What had happened? Sonic... Sonic had... had... No! Sonic would never...! Would he...? Had he, Tails, had he... his idea... had he... shown... No! Never! Sonic would not! He would not! That was not like him! That was not his way!

Like it wasn't his way to hold on to the past? To be unable to forget? Like that wasn't his way? But he'd done it, hadn't he! He had! And so... who was Tails, to say what was or was not his way. He'd... he had... he had given his friend - though he didn't know it - had he given him... at long last... an... an easy way out?

No! Sonic would never choose to end it all like that!

Would he?

Lying discarded on the sand beside the plane, the Emerald detector, still active, beeped twice - and exploded.

Only an immense surge of Chaos energy, more than anything Tails had ever encountered, could have done that. Was Sonic still... alive? Out there, somewhere? Galvanised into action, Tails reactivated the Cyclone and powered up its own Emerald detection system. A faint but steady signal indicated the presence of all seven Emeralds, drained of almost all their power. If Sonic still lived, then he would be there, with those Emeralds. And Tails had to find him! Once more the plane shot up into the cloudless sky, but this time with a far more urgent mission.

Tails flew directly to the source of the faint signal, out in the middle of the ocean. A short way from a little island, a single rock poked its very top above water - and there, on that rock, was a scrap of something, something white. Sonic's glove? The plane swooped down for a hurried landing on the island, Tails flying across to the little rock without even bothering to turn the plane's engine off, or even stop it from moving completely, heedless of everything but that white speck he had seen from above. A hand, and only that, limp on the rock, the arm extending under the water, invisible in the murk of stirred-up dirt and algae. Tails grabbed hold of it and pulled hard. Sonic must have been stuck, because he seemed at least twice his normal weight - or was Tails just weak from relief that his friend was still alive? He tugged Sonic onto the rock - but Sonic's other hand was holding onto something else, clutched in a grip that even death would take time to loosen. A torn, burned... glove? Tails pulled harder, faster, only half believing what he saw. Singed and burned, fur seared away in places, somehow it was Shadow - and both he and Sonic were still alive, if only just.

So this... this was what happened when... when you somehow, however you did it, when you somehow exceeded the speed of light... time went... backwards...? Sonic had... had returned to the planet's atmosphere... before Shadow burned up... and saved him...? How could this be? But it was... it had to be... true...

Tails spun his tails hard and managed to lift them both into the air, flying as fast as he was able to his plane, which lifted off, heading back the way it had come. Although they were barely alive, both Sonic and Shadow lived, and Tails flew back with hope in his heart for the future.

* * *

Author's note: I play with sanity and reality. Mostly, I put 'em back together when I'm done... if not, feel free to pick up the pieces. Hyper Sonic's eye colour, just in case you were wondering, is definitely green - or at least, it was on the Sonic and Knuckles Collection, and I've never seen any evidence to the contrary. To go Hyper requires all the power of the Emeralds, Super only half (which is how Sonic and Shadow charged up together). But you knew that anyway. Review my story, whether or not you liked it, and you have my gratitude! 


	2. Chapter 2

Is it better to love a friend, to hate an enemy? All people care about those dear to them far more than any others... but is that truly right? Shouldn't all life be equal? Or can a friend's happiness mean more than another person's life?

Tails looked down on the bed where Shadow lay, and over to the settee at Sonic. He was more worried about Shadow, really; although Sonic's trip through time had taken a lot out of him, he just needed to rest and get some energy back - it was Shadow whose life he feared for. Sonic had returned Shadow from the dead, in a way, but that rescue had come almost too late. Now that Tails had seen the full extent of Shadow's injuries, he wasn't sure what would become of him, of whether he would survive at all. He didn't want to move him, but didn't really think he should stay there... for what kind of care could Tails provide? He knew more about mechanics than medicine, knew how to repair vehicles, not people. And if Shadow didn't survive, he feared Sonic would return to his dark mood...

Was that selfish? Shadow was alive, and he didn't know whether he cared more that Shadow lived, or that Sonic came back to being his normal self. Was that... selfish? Uncaring? Why did Sonic's happiness matter more than Shadow's life? Was it dangerous, was it... bad... to care about someone so much?

No! Sonic was his best friend, and he didn't even know Shadow. He'd rather... rather... what would he rather? No matter how hard he tried, it came back to this, to whether it was really right to care more for Sonic than Shadow. What would Sonic think, what would he want... what would he do?

Why was he even thinking about this? Right now, both concerns were the same thing! But, some part of his mind kept saying, what if they weren't? He shook his head and turned back to Shadow. Quite apart from the difficulty of getting him there in the first place from this out-of-the-way location, the problems of actually sorting out everything with a hospital would be immense - because Shadow was dead, and everybody knew it. There would be a huge amount of attention almost immediately; nobody could keep a secret like this, so the press - and anyone else who was even remotely interested - would find out and turn up. There was no way he'd be able to keep everyone away. And what if the military decided they'd go after Shadow now, while he couldn't fight? Tails wasn't sure what their reaction would be, but it was one possibility. Or, what if Robotnik took what would no doubt seem to be a golden opportunity? Because he would, Tails was almost certain.

Perhaps, then, it would be best if Shadow stayed there, in the workshop, quiet and safe and away from harm. Few people came to visit Tails in this remote little place. And yet... and yet...

Frustrated by his inability to decide on the best course of action, Tails spun around and started pacing up and down the little room. His thoughts chased each other round in circles, getting no further than his pacing took him. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth, soft footsteps making enough noise so that he almost missed the near-silent whisper.

"Maria..."

Tails frowned and looked again at Shadow. He was, Tails knew, Sonic's equal in almost every area - Sonic's almost exact double, but with different memories and thoughts, a different mind. If he could expect Sonic to recover unaided, then Shadow would, too. The problem was, he wasn't sure - both whether Sonic would be able to recover unaided from something like this - though he thought he would - and whether Shadow still had that same will to live, no matter what, that had brought Sonic through several near-fatal encounters. Without that will to live, Shadow might just slip away, even if he could have recovered, and Tails didn't know him well enough to tell whether or not he had it. But he desperately hoped - for both Shadow and for Sonic - that he did. Because if not, then he wasn't sure that there was anything that could save him.


	3. Chapter 3

When someone's life depends on your decision, you can never be quite sure you made the best choice. There's always a 'what if' in any situation, and in one like that even the tiniest doubt can seem huge.

Tails sat down on a nearby chair and sighed. Had he made the right choice? He supposed so, but his mind insisted on asking 'what if'? What if it was worse than he'd thought? And yet, more than anything else, Shadow's will to live was what would really be the deciding factor. He might not have much influence. If Shadow wanted to slip away... to fade into the peaceful darkness...

A sound to his right cut into Tails' thoughts. He turned his head, gaze flashing to Sonic, who opened his eyes and looked towards him. Even that little movement was painfully slow to Tails' eye, but he knew it was only what could be expected, after the amount of energy Sonic had used up.

"Tails..." His voice was little more than a whisper, but it seemed to hold again some of his old self, though still somehow different. "Tails... did he... make it...? Did I... bring him back...?"

"I don't know how you did it, Sonic, but you made it, you brought him back! He's going to be okay." He'd better be okay, or Tails didn't know what he would do. But he didn't want to tell Sonic how bad it was, not until he'd rested, or he'd insist on getting up and trying to do something, when Tails knew full well Sonic didn't have the energy to so much as walk around the room.

"You just stay there and rest, okay Sonic?"

"If... if you want..." Sonic's eyes were already closed; he was already drifting back into the dark embrace of sleep. Tails watched him for a few minutes, noticing how he seemed more at peace now that he had succeeded in saving Shadow, where before he had continually blamed himself for that failure, and it had been written across his face even when he slept. Such a change... what did Shadow mean to Sonic? Why? Would he have been that way had Shadow been anybody else?

Why did that matter? What did Tails care, just so long as his friend was all right again? He looked to Shadow once more, noting his slightest movement, the rise and fall of his breathing, a movement of one closed eye, flitting across some inner landscape that Tails could neither touch nor hope to guess at. And he saw again how very similar Shadow was to Sonic. Perhaps it was that very similarity that threw his judgement off, because surely Shadow would not do everything that Sonic would. And yet he had seen them act together at the end, the same idea flashing between them across an unspoken look, whatever words there might have been left unsaid. So he did not know as well as he might have done otherwise, where to draw a line between how one and the other would react to this...

And Shadow, what was he to Sonic? Certainly he was much like him in many ways... was it possible that he was too much so? Tails worried that through Shadow, Sonic was representing the failures of his past, trying to undo the irrevocable events of several years ago. He feared that, through Shadow, Sonic was trying to, in his own eyes, make everything all right. As if, by saving Shadow, he could through him save Metal, others too, but Metal especially. And then, what if, when Shadow woke up, he was not who Sonic had needed him to be? What then? What would Sonic do?

There was no point in continuing that argument, not even an argument, just half-formed doubts and fears, coming out now that Sonic was so terribly exhausted, Shadow close to death, and Tails uncertain whether he had done the right thing for either of them. Alone, afraid, his mind was working on overdrive, and pouncing on the tiniest suspicions. But still he could not dismiss them.

Shadow moved slightly, and Tails at once looked across to him, fully alert for any sign that Shadow was slipping away. But he seemed caught in some dreamscape, a land of his own invention or recollection, and after a while Tails turned back to his own worried thoughts.


	4. Chapter 4

Sonic awoke to a blurring, shifting room, fuzzy and unfocused, that seemed to change every time he moved his head. A voice sounded from one side, Tails' voice, oddly strained in a way that Sonic had never heard before.

"Sonic? Are you awake?"

Sonic took only a moment before replying, sorting out his various impressions of the room, which was beginning to stabilise. He was in the bedroom in Tails' workshop, a couple of chairs brought up and pushed together with blankets thrown over them to make up his bed. And on Tails' bed, a dark shape, touched here and there with red - Shadow.

"...Yes. Tails, is he... is he all right, still?"

"Uh-huh, Sonic. Shadow's gonna be fine."

There was an odd emphasis on the word 'Shadow', as though Tails thought Sonic might have meant somebody else. And his voice was shot through with strain and weariness.

"Tails... how long was I out?"

"The better part of a week, I guess. It gets hard to tell, after a while."

Tails mentally berated himself for that, regretting it instantly the words had been said. Sonic had enough to worry about as it was, without becoming concerned for Tails over cryptic comments like that! And sure enough, Sonic, even in his still-weakened state, caught up the comment and tried to follow it back to its source.

"What do you mean, Tails?"

Sonic's voice seemed to be growing stronger as he spoke, shaking off the dullness of sleep. He had been recovering with his usual rapidity, as Tails had expected him to, and was now returning to a semblance of his former alertness.

"It's nothing, Sonic. Really, I'm fine."

Tails guarded his words carefully for that sentence, tiredness making him more likely to let something slip, tired mind trying to hold onto the thoughts he didn't want Sonic to hear.

"Tails?"

Sonic wasn't certain what Tails had meant, or what the strange tension running through his voice was, why it was underlying his every word, but he wasn't going to let his young friend keep whatever was bothering him to himself like that. That wasn't like Tails, anyway, not hiding things from him. Not from Sonic, not his best friend. Sonic had to know what was going on. When Tails showed no sign of having so much as heard him, he repeated himself.

"Tails?"

Tails gave a start, as though he'd forgotten his friend was even there.

"Sonic? Shadow is going to be fine. And I'm fine too. Just tired. You still need to rest."

Tails delivered it in short, jerky sentences, disconnected from each other, and still strained, too. There was something else, something that he wasn't saying, as if he was almost... afraid. But why? Why would Tails be afraid? What could have happened that would make him feel that way? Sonic didn't understand. He looked at his friend, sharp-eyed now, mind clear and thoughts rapid. Tails seemed so terribly tired... and worried. Worried for Sonic? For Shadow? He had no way of telling, but he thought Tails was worried for him, not Shadow.

"Tails? What happened... when I tried to save him?" Sonic asked. Had it done something to him, caused something bad to happen? Was that what Tails feared?

Tails replied slowly, awkwardly, as if not really thinking about it, thoughts fuzzy with the tiredness he was fighting.

"When you... exceeded the speed of light... somehow you went back in time, and saved him. You must have thought you could do it, or you wouldn't have tried - right?"

"Yes, I'd thought I might be able to do it. But... did something happen?" He felt all right... somewhat weak, perhaps, but that would go away, given time. Tails shook his head, confusing Sonic further. If nothing had happened to him, at least nothing too serious, then what was his friend so worried about? What was he concealing? And why?

"Tails... what's wrong?" he asked, gently, quietly. "I'm fine... you said so yourself." But... maybe he'd been wrong about the reason for his friend's worry - had he? "Is it - is it Shadow?"

Tails' reply was already partly spoken before he caught himself. "Ye- no, no, Shadow will be all right. He's been getting better, slowly..." Very slowly, but it was happening. Shadow, too, had a will to live that had kept him fighting, that had kept him on the slow road to recovery, and though it would be a long time yet, Tails believed Shadow would heal. It was what would happen then that he feared, what Sonic would do... And though he never admitted it, even to himself, in the deepest corners of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder... would Sonic have done the same for him?


End file.
